When comparing System76 Oryx Pro vs HP Envy 13, the Slant community recommends System76 Oryx Pro for most people. In the question“What is the best laptop for programming?”System76 Oryx Pro is ranked 12th while HP Envy 13 is ranked 25th. The most important reason people chose System76 Oryx Pro is:

All System76 laptops come with Linux out of the box. The Oryx Pro comes with either Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or Ubuntu 16.10. But that does not mean that other Linux distributions are not supported, quite the contrary. Most Linux distros should work without any major problems with the Oryx pro and most (if not all) drivers are available.

Pros

Pro

Great Linux support

All System76 laptops come with Linux out of the box. The Oryx Pro comes with either Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or Ubuntu 16.10. But that does not mean that other Linux distributions are not supported, quite the contrary. Most Linux distros should work without any major problems with the Oryx pro and most (if not all) drivers are available.

Pro

Excellent choice for gaming on Linux

The Oryx Pro is probably the best laptop with Linux support out of the box that is great for gaming as well. This is mostly because of the NVIDIA graphics cards. It comes by default with the GTX 1060 but for $289 more, you can add a GTX 1070 instead. The default 8GB of RAM is good for gaming but the 16GB RAM is ideal.

Pro

Amazing overall performance

The default 6th generation i7 Processor coupled with the 16GB of RAM (even better with the versions with 32GB and 64GB) make for an absolutely amazing machine. It has a dedicated SSD for the OS only which massively increases startup time and for anything else you can choose up to two SSDs or HDDs of varying sizes. The Oryx Pro is perfectly capable of doing some heavy-lifting including 4K video editing and gaming at highest settings without a hitch.

Pro

Good speakers

One of the bonuses of having a larger body is that you get to use good speakers instead of some small ones stuck underneath the laptop. They are also angled toward the user and the sound is crisp and loud enough, even though it lacks some bass.

Pro

Good keyboard

The keyboard is very nice, it's not amazing by any means but quite comfortable to work with. The keys are pretty thick, thicker than what you may find in laptops today and with a nice springiness to them. The keyboard also supports multicolor backlighting.

Pro

Good display

Has a 1080p matte display with an optional IPS matte display version. With great colors and brightness and almost no eye strain even when it's used for extended periods.

Pro

Very customizable

Before buying the System76 Oryx Pro from the System76 website, you get to customize almost every aspect of the laptop as far as specs go. The price depends on what you choose to put inside your laptop and prices vary from $1475 for the basic version to $7000 for a laptop with a 17.3" Matte IPS Display, a GTX 1070, 6th Gen i7 CPU, 64GB RAM, and two SSDs of 5TB and 4TB respectively.

Pro

Extremely portable

The HP Envy 13 is one of the thinnest laptops on the market at just 12.9mm thick. This detail, coupled with the fact that it weighs just above 1.3kg make the Envy 13 one of the lightest and most portable laptops on the market.

Pro

People who usually use their laptop on a desk will feel very comfortable with this

The Envy 13 has a hinge on the back which gives the laptop a slight extra boost in keyboard height. This puts the keyboard at a much more comfortable typing position and reduces RSI and finger-fatigue from extensive periods of typing.

Pro

Good performance for the price

The HP Envy 13 offers good performance for its price. It can handle up to 16 Chrome tabs open simultaneously without even a bit of lag. Daily mainstream activities such as web browsing, editing files and even development work can be done on this laptop without any particular issues.

Cons

Con

No 4K option

It lacks the option to have a 4K display. While not a deal breaker, it's a shame that a laptop with a display as good as Oryx Pro's does not have a 4K option which would also be a great plus for gamers.

Con

Customer service could be much better

System76's technical support is pretty bad. When there's a problem that should be solved by them, they usually resort to sending replacement parts instead or blaming third-parties (even if those third-parties are not at fault) of something that they should be fixing.

Con

Very heavy and bulky

Weighing at 5.5lbs for the 15.6" version it's relatively heavy and it's one inch thicker than the XPS 13. But the extra space is not put to waste, considering how it has an Ethernet port, SD card slot, 2 Mini DisplayPrts, HDMI port, 2 USB 3.1 Type-C ports, 3 USB 3.0 Type-A ports and headphone and mic jacks. The GTX 1070 version also includes a headphone amplifier. However, the power brick that comes with the charger is ridiculously large at 2lbs which understandably adds to the weight of the laptop since most of the time you have to carry both with you.

Con

The touchpad may be unreliable

Sometimes while dragging the cursor to select text, the touchpad will not interpret the input correctly and may start zooming in or zooming out.

Con

Poor battery life

The Envy 13 has a relatively poor battery life. You may get about 9 hours out of it if you use it for general web browsing and some productivity work, but anything more than that (watching videos, light gaming) and you will start noticing that the battery life is considerably lower.